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Saturday, October 20, 2012

Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach

I am not finding much time to read during the day. I am in the middle of doing research for a paper that I have to present this month to my Monday Afternoon Club (here). The category is Cities. We have already learned about "Pittsburgh" and "Cities in Literature" and Monday's paper is "City of Enlightenment." My paper is entitled "Nestled in a Fertile Valley" and will take a look at Lompoc, California. (Don't ask.)So, I find the only time for reading is right before bedtime and I am well into Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach by Colin Cotterill. Unemployed crime reporter Jimm Juree is back with her family and the run-down resort they own and run on the Gulf of Siam in Thailand. There is mother Mair; granddad Jah, a retired traffic policeman; her somewhat dim brother Arny, the body-builder; and Sissi, her sister who (through the miracles of modern medicine) used to be her brother and is a wiz on the Internet. It's all crazy.This is the second in the series that began with KilledAt the Whim of a Hat (here). There are a mysterious mother and daughter on the lam and hiding out in the family's resort. There are tales of the struggles of the Burmese refugees living in Thailand working for little or no pay and occasionally disappearing. There is the head Jimm finds on the beach which no one - especially the police - seem interested in identifying.And although the plight of the Burmese refugees is real, the story is full of crazy characters and situations all of which Mr. Cotterill manages to make ring true. Very entertaining.